Abstract

Purpose

The immediate postoperative management of patients undergoing pterygium excision usually includes eye patching in order to alleviate pain and prevent accidental tissue damage. Commonly applied tight patching with gauze bandages results in decreased field of monocular vision and discomfort. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patient-centered outcome of pterygium surgery when therapeutic contact lenses (TCL) are used instead of tight bandage patching in the first 24 postoperative hours.

Main outcome measures: Degree of pain on an 0–10 scale, use of pain killers, level of patient discomfort, sleep quality, and visual acuity (VA).

Results

Sixty patients were studied. The pain level and pain duration during the first postoperative day was significantly lower in the tight bandage patching group compared with the TCL group (P = 0.034, P = 0.04 respectively). Sleep quality was significantly poorer in the TCL group (P = 0.004). The VA on the first postoperative day was similar for the two groups.

Conclusions

The application of TCL in the first 24 h after pterygium surgery resulted in more discomfort and pain and decreased quality of sleep compared with tight bandage patching. Despite the limitation in monocular vision and the inconvenience of gauze bandages, they are preferred over TCL for alleviating pain following pterygium surgery.

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Notes

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.